Top 5 Fridays! 5 Differential Diagnosis Cases

I don't know how to use an assistive device, but I am one hell of a diagnostician

A recent Top 5 Fridays request was 5 patients that surprisingly improved after plateauing. I thought hard about that one and could not think of 5.

Instead, I thought I would recount 5 memorable cases that required differential diagnosis/referral out to resolve their symptoms. They all have something in common, failure to improve or plateauing after a short time despite my best efforts and their compliance.

1) Chronic Headaches and Tinnitus

male mid 40s, referred for chronic headaches and tinnitus

the usual MDT education and soft tissue work to upper quarter rapidly resolved the HA and cervical pain

no change in tinnitus for the next 3 weeks (this was a long time ago - my leash obviously shorter)

at the time, I had finished my differential diagnosis for PT course for my DPT through the University of St. Augustine

I remembered learning about a side effect of "overdosing" on aspirin was tinnitus

upon questioning, he was eating aspirin like people eat M&M's

since his other complaints were better, I had him discontinue and his tinnitus gradually resolved within a week

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